Wednesday, 6 March 2019

MDC Alliance deputy president, Professor Welshman Ncube, has joined a slew of the opposition party’s sycophantic officials who are shielding party leader Mr Nelson Chamisa from possible challenge at the elective Congress slated for May by insinuating that any challenge to the presidency would be a “political miscalculation.”Prof Ncube’s sentiments are in sync with those of the MDC Harare Youth Assembly that on Monday suggested that a challenger to Mr Chamisa’s presidency would have declared themselves an enemy of the party.Mr Chamisa faces a possible challenge from the party’s secretary general, Mr Douglas Mwonzora, who has been receiving a barrage of insults and threats from party officials intent on scuppering his campaign.Despite presenting itself as a “democratic party of excellence”, the MDC has been at pains to eliminate any challenge to Mr Chamisa’s position at Congress set to run from 24-26 May.

There have been attempts to link Mr Mwonzora to Zanu-PF but the ruling party has distanced itself from the allegations saying it has no time to meddle in opposition politics.In an interview in Bulawayo yesterday, Prof Ncube defended the Harare provincial Youth Assembly’s stance saying they are entitled to their opinions.“The Youth Assembly is a semi-autonomous organ of the party, first at national level; at provincial level as well, they are entitled to make their decisions,” he said.Prof Ncube said momentum favours Mr Chamisa’ as he has inspired youths to participate in electoral processes.

“At this particular historical juncture to me, it appears unwise for anyone if they are nominated to accept that nomination given the credentials I’ve already summarised for you, for the incumbent Nelson Chamisa. Anyone who accepts nomination will probably be guilty of a serious political miscalculation, given where we are,” he said.“We are all individuals, using all the objective criteria that I have in mind, I really have a difficulty in finding any rationale for anyone to accept any nomination, my sense too, I will be surprised if anyone other than Chamisa is nominated given the momentum that we have had with him, given the inspirational advantage that he has.”Besides Mr Mwonzora, another probable challenger to Mr Chamisa is Engineer Elias Mudzuri. Prof Ncube said the party members should stop canvassing for nominations.“What I personally think is unfortunate is where individuals go out of their way to be canvassing to be nominated. It shouldn’t happen. We should be invited by the membership to accept nomination. Not to go out of our way to solicit for nomination.“Therefore, I find the notion of challenging anyone to be problematic. You can’t challenge anyone because you can’t nominate yourself. You can’t stand up and say I am challenging so and so. Challenging them as who?” he said.

Meanwhile, Prof Ncube is said to be eying one of the vice presidential positions but faces a possible challenge from Ms Thabitha Khumalo.He said he would accept nomination for any position but not the presidency. Chronicle